‘Yet you agreed to be a member of the Winterhilfswerk Committee.’
‘It was my duty, wasn’t it?’
‘Good cover too, one might think.’
‘Cover? Didn’t I have to show people that I was a loyal citizen?’
‘And your neighbour, Frau Oberkircher. Does she no longer-’
‘Claudette? Claudette and my mother shared their widowhood, and now, poor soul, she has just lost her primary source of income.’
Dieu merci, that had made him pause. ‘Sophie likes to ski, and when the three of us got together, we found we shared that love.’
‘And the archery?’ he asked, avoiding Claudette and whether she had been forced into watching the shop for the Gestapo.
‘Sophie introduced us to it out at her father’s country house. Renee was always keen to compete. We enjoyed ourselves. We skated too-there’s a beautiful little lake in the forested hills behind the house and when the wind clears the snow, the ice is perfect and one can skate for hours in absolute peace. But … but how did you know of the archery?’
‘Calluses on her fingers, feather cuts on the back of her right hand.’
Again he was watching her too closely but was he thinking of the knot that had been around Renee’s throat, or that Renee hadn’t committed suicide at all?
‘She didn’t love Alain Schrijen, Inspector. He hadn’t given her time, had rushed her off her feet, but she’d been afraid to say no to him. Unlike Sophie, Alain has … well, he’s been given far too much.’
‘Why not say he’s spoiled, Victoria? Why not say he’s become a sadist who beats defenceless men who are already so broken, they can no longer work? That he enjoys what he does? That they’re-’
‘Sophie … Sophie, please go back and rest. You don’t know what you’re-’
‘Saying? Don’t you ever try to silence me, Victoria Bodicker. They even send young women to that place, Inspector. Experiments … they do experiments on them!’
The hush of the Steeping Shed had alarmed Herr Kohler, accustomed as he was to the noise of the Pulping Shed, felt Dorsche. Quickly this Kripo scanned the building, seeing the men in black rubberized boots, suits and long aprons, their gauntlets and goggles removed, their helmets those of a fire brigade. He would be wondering what was going on and where he was-in some sort of industrial spa perhaps, for long rectangular baths extended one after another and side-by-side from this end of the building to the other, the steeping tanks. He would see that rack upon rack of metre-square sheets of pure white cellulose from the Pulping Shed now waited to be bathed: two hundred of them to a rack, fifty racks side-by-side and to the far end of the building. He would note the fumes, the strongly alkaline odour of caustic soda, would know for certain that it was dangerously corrosive and that if splashed on bare skin or lips or in the eyes, one screamed in agony. He’d know that the concrete floor would most certainly become slippery once the roller presses, which were to the far side, began to squeeze the caustic from the sheets after their little bath of forty minutes.
‘The carpenter,’ managed Kohler, not liking things. ‘You said he’d be here. Just why would a building like this need one?’
It being of corrugated iron in which there were no boards, only cellulose from wood fibre. ‘Perhaps he’s been transferred,’ hazarded Dorsche, as a Lagerfeldwebel should.
‘You’re threatening me.’
‘Ach, I am merely telling you that from now on all questions will be given and answered in my presence. Surely you must realize Lageroffizier Rudel will require thorough answers from me and that I must impart everything that has been said?’
‘Where is he, then, this carpenter?’
‘A moment, that is all. Herr Savard is learning the ropes, as they say.’
Dorsche had found and had the carpenter moved within the space of ten minutes, which could only mean he had a communications’ network so good it could reach into every corner of the Textilfabrik in spite of superheated steam pipes. His Werkschutz must be everywhere, his Spitzel, too, his informants among the POWs, and he had just demonstrated this. An iron fist like the chairman’s, only one with even far tighter control.
The chemist’s suicide really couldn’t have sat well with Dorsche-something like that happening right under his nose and he not knowing of it until after the fact.
When the last and most distant of the sheets had been hung in its rack, all fifty of the carriages trundled inevitably toward their respective steeping tanks where chain hoists lifted them. The men-Poles this time, noted Kohler-covered their eyes with the goggles, pulled down their helmets, suited up with the gauntlets and lowered the racks into the baths, the sound of iron wheels changing to that of rattling chains, to that of gurgling, rising caustic.
One by one the men moved on to the roller presses to prepare things there. Water hoses were uncoiled, taps checked, buckets filled in case of needed emergency medical treatment, four-wheeled dollies placed nearby so that when squeezed of their juice, the sheets could be stacked and then transported elsewhere.
‘You wished to see me, Lagerfeldwebel?’
In his late thirties and of less than medium height under a helmet that was too big, Henri Savard’s watchful eyes remained obediently fixed on Dorsche. The dark brown moustache, not unlike Louis’s, had yet to be shaved off, for in a place like this it could only soak up splashed caustic. The chin was blunt, the cauliflower ears big, the face drawn and pockmarked, the flattened nose encrusted with warts, the lips unsmiling, un-anything, the vegetable silence that of peasant ancestors.
‘Prisoner 220375, Herr Kohler wishes to know how you are finding your new employment.’
Eugene Thomas had been Number 220371.
‘Very satisfactory, Lagerfeldwebel.’
And from Lille near the Belgian border.
‘No complaints?’ asked Dorsche.
‘None, Lagerfeldwebel.’
‘Gut. You may begin the interview, Herr Detektiv. Again, as before, time necessitates haste. Since others are filling in for this man, you may take’-Dorsche consulted his wristwatch-‘twelve minutes, a little longer, of course, if you do not wish to also question Prisoner 220372.’
Savard didn’t blink. He simply remained zeroed in on Dorsche.
‘Number 220372?’ asked Kohler.
Understandably he was puzzled since there were no windows in the shed. ‘The glazier, Gerard Leger, is at the far end of the building, so I have allowed sufficient time for us to take such a walk. You don’t want to be in here, though, when they squeeze the sheets. You are not suitably attired.’
Dorsche found and lit a cigarette. Exhaling, he said, ‘It’s perfectly safe to smoke in here. You may offer Prisoner 220375 one of Chairman Schrijen’s small cigars if you wish.’
The pungency of motherwort returned as unexpectedly as Sophie Schrijen’s sudden intrusion, and to this came the scent of Mirage, the bookseller having stiffened in alarm at what had just been revealed about Natzweiler-Struthof. Clearly the Fraulein Schrijen had come to a decision on how best to proceed and just as clearly, she had overheard everything that had been said in her absence.
‘The Fraulein Ekkehard was afraid of men, Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘Unfortunately I can find no other way of putting it unless I were to use the word adrift. Peripherally, of course. Certainly, in so far as I am aware, she didn’t engage openly in such practices, given the threat of prison or worse, but when men got too close, the girl could become terribly distressed, though she hid it well during everyday circumstances, didn’t she, Victoria? That little toss of her head that imparted so much, the dresses she chose, the lightness of her step. Everyone was taken in by her, myself especially.’